O Little Root of a Dream

O Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
Translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov


O little root of a dream
you hold me here
undermined by blood,
no longer visible to anyone,
property of death.

Curve a face
that there may be speech, of earth,
of ardor, of
things with eyes, even
here, where you read me blind,

even
here,
where you
refute me,
to the letter.